This New Social Networking Platform is Reinventing The Résumé

July 27, 2017

The number one reason people leave their jobs is because they don’t feel comfortable in the working environment they’re in. As a result, we go on an exhaustive search to find the perfect job we deserve. And if we can’t find it, we start our own business.

Since everyone seems to be feeling this way, why do we have to pretend we’re someone we’re not in interviews? How can we possibly be performing at our best when we don’t feel like ourselves?

Swishlinks, a new social and professional networking platform, is built for the future of work. Created from the belief that when people see the whole you, greater opportunities will be presented, people are now able to tell their personal stories that lead them to where they are and where they want to be.

Sprung from the concept of enhanced company culture, asking questions like, “Is this talent a good fit for me?” and “Does this company have a good culture that I will fit in with?” Swishlinks is the new and improved living résumé.

Founders of the platform Ali Shahanaghi and Charbel Seif began to see a pattern where people in search of a new job or career change were looking more at workplace culture than the actual employment title. Knowing that people are viewing an enjoyable work culture as a must instead of a plus, Shahanaghi and Seif decided to turn their weekend discussions on the matter into a full-time operation.

In comparison to LinkedIn, where the atmosphere is strictly professional, Swishlinks is set up to be more of an intimate setting, allowing users to collaborate on compatibility versus credibility. While they are both professional platforms, LinkedIn is about the end result of achieving a career and showcasing a reflective title. Swishlinks, on the other hand, is about the “behind the scenes” of how a professional got to where he/she is. “How did you become that marketing manager?” versus “I am a marketing manager.”

The platform is on target to help cultivate the “side hustle” mentality and motivation of users. Being able to showcase yourself entirely, stating your career aspirations alongside your love of traveling and hiking, instead of a dry “I’m in sales” proposition, opens up new conversations where you don’t have anything to hide.

“Our platform is replacing the traditional résumé,” Ali told us about Swishlinks. “With a more visual structure, we are the new résumé.”

With Swishlinks still in progress on more in-app features, the public launch for the platform is set for August of this year.

While in its testing phase, the majority of users have been millennials from marketing/pr, business, film, architecture, education, beauty and fashion and engineering backgrounds and industries. Feedback from them is helping the Swishlinks team get to where they need to be in order to encapsulate the best customer experience.

“Swishlinks is untraditional,” Shahanaghi stated. “Résumés shouldn’t just be bullet points. You have much more value than that. Being able to showcase yourself fully, as part of your professional journey…that’s the best way to be discovered.”

Headquartered in Chicago, Swishlinks is additionally operating in Montreal and Ontario. The goal, according to Shahanaghi, is to get feedback from a wide range of cultures in order to go international.